Desktop Management Stratgies

One of the biggest challenges that a CIO faces today is to keep individual users in an enterprise safe and satisfied with the IT resources they use. One of the way to ensure that is desktop management. We take at look at the path to desktop management, the challenges faced and the key advantages

Thursday, September 06, 2007

The clock had struck midnight in a chilly wintry night and Ajit Singh was cursing his luck for having to stay back that late along with his team in office. “12 in the night-two hrs past my usual sleeping time,” he thought. But such is the bane of his profession. It was destined to be another of those long weekends. Just a little over four hours ago, all hell had broken loose in his department-the 1200 odd computers in the BPO, that he was the CIO of, were faced with a massive virus threat. There was a patch available for the threat, but it would take sometime before it were installed completely on all computers. And God knows what havoc the virus might wreak on the systems till then. So there he was, with his department of eight 'technicians,' painstakingly supervising the installation of the patch.

Such a scenario needs not introduction to a CIO. They are quite habituated to working under such tight deadlines. As more and more people join an enterprise, the number of desktops increase, and so does the demand for support, maintenance and troubleshooting. So, the role of the IT team gradually gets reduced to providing tech support instead of concentrating on implementing new strategies.

In today's world, even the slightest breach, the simplest of compromises in IT security of an organization, can bring the entire IT infrastructure to a complete halt. One of the important tasks before any IT manager is desktop management. In a large organization, the management of desktops (and this includes laptops, PDAs and smart phones) can be an uphill task. An updated inventory is only the first step. What software is installed on each of them? Is each desktop fitted with sufficient security tools? What is the state of obsolescence in the systems? Has the latest version of a critical software been installed? If yes, which of them are on the VPN?-all these are questions whose answers need to be at fingertips of a CIO. And the only way to do this is through efficient desktop management.

At basic level, desktop management (DM) involves three components-asset management (managing the inventory of the software and hardware), patch management, and software distribution (including license compliance monitoring). If you stretch this definition, it also includes spam filtering, virus scanning, detecting and eliminating spyware, IM security, wireless security, firewall configuration and, for remote workers, VPN management. Of course, there has been life before desktop management strategies evolved, and we dare say some organizations can do without it, but a CIO needs to take the call based on two considerations-is the existing IT strategy keeping up with changing technologies, new software revisions and user support issues? and secondly, will it continue to be scalable? If the answer to either of these is no, there is no alternative but to deploy a Desktop Management (DM) strategy.

The case for Desktop Management
There are various ways in which you can implement Desktop Management. Some of these may involve fundamental changes to your network structure and the way it operates. Others might include a change in IT policies to bring them in tune with various regulatory standards. Let's take a look:

1. Automation: According to IDC surveys, IT organizations (small or large) that have IT asset discovery and inventory, have a way to enable other IT solutions to begin automated, basic asset management to lower costs and improve availability. Multiple endpoints are being considered: appliances, virtualization, policy-based management, patch management, and so on. Entwined within these technologies is a concern for overall system security, not just at the level of the desktop but all the way to the data center. Protecting the internal environment from outsiders while giving insiders access to specific corporate applications is the key.

2. Centralization: Most consultants say centralization is inevitable with desktop management. It makes tasks such as patch installations on 5,000 desktops easier. Centralized application installation, monitoring application usage, and keeping track of resources have also become less tedious. The amount of time, effort, and cost saved when all the controls are in once place, is immense. For instance, if the operating system has to be upgraded on 700 machines over seven locations, it would take at least a month to do the actual installations, and another month to fix the various glitches. It would also involve engineers travelling to various locations. If this entire process is centralized, the installations would be done overnight, sitting in the head office, and any glitches can be handled remotely over the coming week. That is the kind of convenience and cost-saving it results in.

3. Outsourcing: There are definite advantages to outsourcing DM. It frees up a company to focus on its core business. Keeping abreast of technology, 24/7 service, fluctuating demand cycles, varied levels of technology skills, and quick deployment of experts in the eventuality of a security breach are all convenient when an outside specialist agency, manages them. It also results in cost-effectiveness and an overall ease of operation. The trend towards managed services is now gaining pace around the world. Desktop management as an individual component may not see too many contracts, but as part of an overall managed services package, the component is seen to offer more economies of scale and is being outsourced.

4. Standards-based approach: Because of IT security concerns, the need to enhance system availability while at the same time meeting compliance requirements; enterprises are moving toward a more standards-based approach to manage workflows. This means implementing documented, repeatable approaches for tasks such as creating and updating images, rolling out patches, and undertaking a program to improve conducting these tasks over time.

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